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THE OCEAN. 


Hid' 

v 

ILLUSTRA TED. 



DODD, MEAD, AND COMPANY, 

751 BROADWAY. 



■fr 









\ 



* 


Copyright , 1876, Dodd, Mead, Company. 



Press 0/Rand, Avery, and Company, Boston. 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


1. The Frigate Bird.. .. frontispiece. 

2. Top of a Lily-star. page 9 

3. Relative Size of Land and Water. 11 

4. Brook's Sounding Appai-atus. 13 

5. Coast Scene.. 15 

6. A Greenland Glacier.:. . 19 

7. Shells of Foraminifera. 22 

8. Fishing on the Banks of Newfoundland. 23 

9. Foraminifera. 25 

10. Molluscs. 26 

11. Oyster Bed. 29 

12. Salt Works by the Sea Shore. 34 

13. Sea-Pen. 37 

14. Sea-Fan. 38 

15. Flying Fish. 39 


















B LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

16. Sea Horse. .page 40 

17. Phosphorescence. 43 

18. An Arctic Ocean. 47 

19. Antarctic Ice Wall. 49 

20. An Arctic Dry Dock . 51 

21. Sunset at Sea. 55 

22. Stormy Petrel. 57 

23. A Gale at Sea. 59 

24. Portuguese Man of War. 69 

25. Cuttlefish in Indian Ocean. 75 

26. High Tide on the Coast. 79 

27. Low Tide on the Coast. 80 

28. High Tide in the River. 81 

29. Low Tide in the Rjver. 83 

30. The Bore on the Hoogly River. 89 

31. A Norway Fiord. 95 

32. The Head of a Fiord. 99 

33. Islands off the Norway Coast. 101 




















THE OCEAN. 


CHAPTER I. 



TOP OF A LILY-STAR. 


y^HEN, at the 
command of 
the Creator, the wa¬ 
ters under Heaven 
were gathered to¬ 
gether in one place, 
and the dry land 
appeared, the earth 
that was thus formed, 
occupied but a small 
portion of the globe. 
The waters that had 
before covered the 


whole world still covered three-quarters, leav- 




TO 


THE OCEAN. 


ing but a single quarter that acknowledged 
the supremacy of man. The wild ocean still 
surrounded the new-made lands, seeming to 
its early dwellers the abode of gods and 
demons. The ancient Egyptians in the very 
earliest days of history never dared venture 
out of sight of land in their frail craft, and 
farther on in the days of Rome, her great 
poet speaks of the mariner of the Mediter¬ 
ranean as one whose heart was bound with 
triple brass, while less than four hundred 
years ago only the firm will of Columbus 
prevented his followers from turning back 
from what they regarded as the jaws of death. 

This great unknown and unexplored 
ocean is to us no longer the abode of mon¬ 
sters. The whirlpools which the first mari¬ 
ners believed to be polypes that dragged 
down mighty ships to destruction with their 


THE OCEAN, 


II 


long arms, are now known to be caused by 
the ebb and flow of tides surging over hidden 



AREA OF WATER. 


rocks, while the vast tracts of the Atlantic 




































































































































































































































12 


THE OCEAN. 


over which the frail vessel of Columbus crept 
so fearfully, are dotted with the sails of 
sturdy merchantmen. 

The bottom of the ocean, if it could be 
exposed, would be seen to have as irregular a 
surface as the earth. Here we should find 
mountain ranges, and here deep valleys, 
while broad level plains would stretch away 
for miles. Thus between Newfoundland and 
the Irish coast we should find a broad, nearly 
level plateau, while the Bermuda Islands, 
which now hardly lift their heads above the 
waves, would be seen to be at the crest of a 
mountain range as lofty as the Andes. 

Our knowledge of the sea bottom is very 
limited, for many reasons. One of the great¬ 
est of these is the difficulty that has been 
found in making soundings. Where the depth 
is measured by miles, a ship cannot, of course, 


THE OCEAN 


13 


anchor, and thus be perfectly motionless, 



brook's apparatus for sounding in deep seas, 
but may drift a long distance from the spot 














*4 


THE OCEAN. 


where the line is first cast out. Then, too, 
it was necessary until late years, to use a 
fresh line for each trial, for no rope would 
stand for a moment the fearful strain that 
would come upon it in drawing a cannon ball 
up through a mile or more of opposing water. 
But a new apparatus has been invented to 
obviate this difficulty, which is well shown in 
the picture. The moment the bottom is 
touched, the weight, which is generally an 
ordinary cannon ball with a hole drilled 
through it, detaches itself, and the rope is 
safely drawn back. The bottom of the up¬ 
right bar is so chiselled, that when driven 
into the soil, particles of mud and shells are 
caught and brought to the surface, so that 
not only the depth is told, but the character 
of the sea bottom at that spot. 

By means of this instrument the sea is 


THE OCEAN. 


15 



slowly yielding up its secrets ; and enough is 
already known to enable us to lay down a 
few general facts. One of these is that near 
the shore the formation of the land that is 


THE COAST. 

submerged is generally of the same character 
as that which is exposed. If the land is very 
level the depth of the water increases very 


ilfai 




i6 


THE OCEAN. 


slowly as the distance from the shore in¬ 
creases. Off the flat lands of New Jersey the 
depth is only one foot for every seven hundred 
of distance ; while on such gloomy and moun¬ 
tainous coasts as those of Norway the lead 
sinks many a fathom "before finding bottom. 

There are, however, exceptions to all this. 
In the Indian Ocean, near the mouth of the 
Ganges, there is a mighty chasm, called the 
Great Swatch. For long distances around its 
edge the water is only five and ten fathoms 
deep, and then suddenly, without any gradual 
deflection, we come upon this awful chasm 
fully three miles in depth. 

Thus it will be seen that what we have 
said as to the sea having its hills and valleys 
is true; but we shall be very far astray if we 
imagine that, because these hills and valleys 
are not exposed to the frosts and heat, and 


THE OCEAN. 


17 

the many other causes that wear away and 
alter the earth’s surface, they therefore stand 
as rugged and unchanged as when they were 
first formed. The agents at work, though 
often different from those on land, are quite 
as powerful, and if we could look back through 
the ages that have passed, we should find 
changes that would astonish us. One of the 
greatest of these agents are rivers. The Nile, 
and the Mississippi, and the Ganges, and 
others, have brought down whole continents 
in their waters, and have built miles of solid 
land far out into what was once, perhaps, an 
almost fathomless sea. 

Icebergs, too, are no unimportant agents 
in similar continent building. The ice and 
snow that fall on the mountains of the Arctic 
lands, heaped up in the valleys thousands of 
feet in depth, pushed from behind by fresh 


i8 


THE OCEAN". 


snows, and moving downwards by its own 
weight, makes its way slowly, a mighty frozen 
river to the sea. Grinding onward it tears off 
huge boulders from some projecting spur of 
hills and carries them on with it. When 
at last the ocean is reached, and great sec¬ 
tions broken off go floating southward toward 
the warmer regions of more temperate zones, 
these great masses of rock and soil are carried 
with it ; and as the ice is melted, are 
dropped one by one to the bottom. In this 
way has been built up the plateau known as 
the banks of Newfoundland. The polar cur¬ 
rent that passes down Baffin’s Bay, and that 
is dotted every spring and summer with thou¬ 
sands of these icy craft, here meets the Gulf 
Stream, and in its warm waters they soon melt 
away, dropping their cargoes of soil to add to 
the fast-rising continent. In this way nature 





































































































































































































































































THE OCEAN. 


21 


has labored without ceasing, for ages, to de¬ 
stroy the polar lands and build up a new 
continent in the temperate zone. How great 
a progress she has made can be seen when 
we know that all about the plateau the water 
reaches a depth of from four to six miles, 
while on the banks its average depth is only 
about two hundred and eighty feet. In other 
words, the icebergs have here built up a 
mountain range more lofty than the Rocky 
Mountains. 

Hither come great schools of cod, and here 
in pursuit of them, come every year hundreds 
of fishing smacks, returning always with a full 
cargo. Many is the good vessel that has 
been lost here in the easterly gales, or in con¬ 
tact with some iceberg. 

The various forms of animal life with 
which the waters are alive, are constantly 


22 


THE OCEAN. 


adding - to the material of which the floor of the 
ocean is covered. In nearly every case where 
the lead brings up soil it is found to consist of 



SHELLS OF FORAMIXIFERA (Various). • 

Forming deep sea ooze. Gieatly magnified. 

a species of oozy mud, which is formed of the 
shells of very minute animals. Every drop 
of water is teeming with such life as this 
Placed under the microscope we see in it 




























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































THE OCEAN, 


25 


myriads of these strange forms, each moving 
and living. Small and insignificant as they 



THE ORGANISMS WHICH FORM COMMON CHALK—KNOWN 
AS FORAMINIFERA, GREATLY MAGNIFIED. 

seem, yet when we imagine mile after mile of 
water thousands of fathoms in depth, each 





2 6 


THE OCEAN. 


drop of which is thus swarming with busy life, 
we can easily see that the shells of all these, 
slowly settling down as the owner of each died, 
would in time form deposits of great thick¬ 
ness. To these are to be added the shells of 
many larger animals, molluscs, such as the 



MOLLUSCA. 


mussel and clam, which have been found flour¬ 
ishing at the great depth of twenty-eight hun¬ 
dred fathoms—oysters which in some part of 
the deep are crowded thickly together in beds, 
and grow of enormous size and in the warm 



THE OCEAN. 


27 


tropic seas such curious forms of life as the 
sea urchin, and the thousand varieties of coral 
builders :—all these go to increase this great 
deposit of ooze which has been slowly forming 
for ages. The currents of the deep sweep 
this away from exposed portions only to let it 
sink into and fill the quiet valleys, just as the 
valleys of the land are slowly filled by the soil 
that every storm washes from the surround¬ 
ing hills. 

Thus these apparently insignificant agents 
work great results, but there is one that in a 
day* can do more than they in centuries, and 
that one is volcanic action. Since the time 
when at God’s command, the waters which 
had covered the whole globe were gathered 
into their place, and the dry land emerged 
from beneath the sea, the crust of the earth 
has never been at rest. On the land we have 


28 


THE OCEAN. 


had volcanic eruptions that have buried cities 
and have brought sterility on miles of fertile 
soil. In the sea too, even greater changes 
have been wrought. Thus we know that in 
the Pacific to the north and east of Australia, 
where the sea is dotted with coral reefs and 
islands, was once a great continent, now sunk 
and buried many fathoms deep. The coral 
reefs themselves are based each upon some 
sunken mountain peak, and rise like so many 
gravestones to mark the spot where lies the 
buried land. This subsidence is still in 
progress. In other parts of the world, the 
sea bottom is rising. On the Swedish coast, 
for instance, this is the case. Here rings fast¬ 
ened into the cliffs, and to which vessels were 
formerly made fast, are now so far up the 
face of the rock as to be useless. Rocks on 
which elderly people remember that seals 


THE OCEAN. 


29 


were wont to bask in the sun, are now far 
beyond their reach. By actual measurement 
it is proved that the portion of the Scandina- 



OYSTER BED. 


vian peninsula lying on the northern shores of 
the Baltic has been steadily rising, at the rate 
of about four feet each century. If this 














30 


THE OCEAN. 


action continues indefinitely, the Baltic must, 
in the course of ages, disappear, and Sweden 
and Norway will no longer be a peninsula, 
but be connected with the main land. 

Sometimes these upheavals are instanta¬ 
neous. On the coast of Chili, after an earth¬ 
quake, for more than one hundred miles, the 
shores were found to have risen four feet. 


CHAPTER II. 


EA-WATER is heavier than fresh water, 
in the proportion of 1028 to 1000. That 
is, if a certain quantity of fresh water weighed 
1000 pounds, the same quantity of sea-water 
would weigh 1028 pounds. This greater 
weight is caused by foreign substances held 
in solution ; of these, common salt is by far 
the greatest in quantity, being three times 
more than all the rest together. Besides salt, 
there are many others. Even faint traces of 
silver are found, and though these are so 
faint as to be hardly discernible, yet so vast 
is the ocean, that it contains in its waters 
two million tons of this metal. 

Every rain that falls upon the earth sinks 


3 2 


THE OCEAN. 


into the soil, and making its way back to the 
sea, bears with it more or less of the mineral 
substances through which it has passed to 
add to those already held in solution there. 
When again, through evaporation, it assumes 
the form of clouds, all these are left behind. 
In this way, the sea would become more and 
more salt;—but it has plants that draw it in, 
and animals that absorb it, and in many 
places it lays down vast beds of salt many 
feet in thickness, and in such ways as this 
keeps its condition about the same. 

Certain seas, however, are much more 
salt than others. For instance, if the evap¬ 
oration is much greater than the supply of 
fresh water, the saltness will increase. Thus, 
in the Red sea, where the heat is intense, 
and the evaporation great, and where no riv¬ 
ers of fresh water come, the saltness reaches 


THE OCEAN. 


33 


1041. In the Black sea, however, where many 
fresh water streams discharge, and where 
evaporation is slight, it is only 1016. So, too, 
it is less salt off the mouths of great rivers, 
such as the St. Lawrence, the Amazon, and 
the Ganges, while on the banks of Newfound¬ 
land the melting icebergs pour down great 
quantities of fresh water. 

In general, if we take a fathom in depth 
of sea-water, and evaporate the water, we 
shall find left behind two inches of salt. 
Taking the average depth of the whole ocean 
to be three miles, as it has been computed, 
if it were to dry up, it would leave behind it 
a solid bed of salt two hundred and thirty 
feet in thickness. 

The quantity of salt in sea-water is thus 
so great, that the obtaining it by artificial 
means becomes a profitable industry. For 


34 


THE OCEAN. 


this purpose trenches shallow and broad, are 
constructed on the sea-shore, where exposed 



SALT-WORKS BY SEA-SHORE. 

to the sun’s rays the water is soon evapora¬ 
ted, and the salt left behind. This is in- 




THE OCEAN. 


35 


deed but copying nature’s own work. On 
the low shore at the north of the Black sea, 
storms or high tides have again ai:d again 
flooded the land far and wide, and layer 
after layer of salt has been deposited, until 
it is often many feet in thickness. In a sin¬ 
gle year near Odessa, one hundred and twenty 
thousand tons were taken out. 

The color of sea water varies greatly in 
different parts of the ocean. Thus in mid¬ 
ocean it is generally deep blue, but when we 
approach the islands of the tropics, the deep 
blue often changes suddenly to a bright green. 
Off the coast of Lower Guinea, in Africa, the 
water is brown. As we near the poles it as¬ 
sumes a greenish tint, while the Red sea is so 
called from its color. 

What causes the color in water is not 
positively known, but it seems probable that 


36 


THE OCEAN. 


its natural tint is bluish, and that when its 
color varies from this it can be explained by 
the surroundings of the sea where it occurs. 
Thus where the water is brown off the Guinea 
coast it is found that the bottom is red, and 
the sun’s rays causing a reflection give it this 
peculiar hue. Off the coast of Peru, where 
the water is of a deep olive green, the bottom 
is found to be of the same color, and the apple 
green of the tropic islands is the reflection of 
a bottom of white sand. The red of the Red 
sea is from a plant, so small as to be invisible 
to the naked eye, with which its surface is 
covered. Among the coral islands of the 
Pacific, when a storm has been raging, it is said 
that the sea looks like milk, from fine particles 
of white sand which it has washed away, and 
which have not yet settled. 

Generally, however, the tropic seas are 


THE OCEAN. 


37 


famed for the clearness of their waters. Far 
down hundreds of feet, the eye can see every¬ 
thing as plainly as if it were on land. Lean¬ 
ing over the boat’s side a wonderful panorama 
is presented. The graceful sea-pen, and sea- 



SEA-PEN. 

fan are seen far below, or perhaps a huge 
sponge growing upward—an animal, though 
so much in appearance like a plant. In and 
around them swim fish of gorgeous color ; pale 


38 


THE OCEAN. 


pink and lilac or deep red, so clearly seen that 
the fisherman has but to use his eyes to know 
when to pull in his line. Here perhaps come 
a school of flying fish swimming near the sur¬ 
face, and as we watch them they leap from the 



SEA-FAN. 


top of some little wave and skim over the 
surface of the sea, taking again to the water 
some hundred feet or so beyond. Perhaps in 
some tall growth of weeds we may see a sea- 



THE OCEAN. 


39 


horse holding himself fast with his tail to 
some plant, while his bright eyes, ever on the 



FLYING FISH. 


watch for prey, no sooner discover a victim 
than with wonderful speed he darts upon it. 
















































































40 


THE OCEAN 



In the polar seas the water is said to be 
even more clear than in the tropics. Off the 
coast of Greenland great beds of marine 


SEA HORSE. 

plants can plainly be seen at a depth of five 
hundred feet. 

Many of the very minute forms of life of 







THE OCEAN. 


41 


which we have spoken have the strange 
power of giving out light. In the tropic seas 
when night has settled down over the deep, 
each wave seems to be ablaze with flame. 
The slightest wind that ruffles the surface 
stirs up fresh flashes that extend in all 
directions. 

The animal that gives out this phosphor¬ 
escence, is in most cases too small to be seen 
by the naked eye, though they are numbered 
by hundreds of millions, but in some cases 
they exist several inches in length, and can 
be distinctly seen as they move about in the 
water like so many tongues of fire. Some 
give out a pale light, so that whole miles of 
the sea present a milky appearance, others 
seem like metal melted to a white heat, while 
in other cases, the ship moves on mile after mile 
through what seems an ocean of molten lava. 


42 


THE OCEAN. 


Of the temperature of the sea in differ¬ 
ent parts of the world, and at different depths, 
we as yet know little. We do know, however, 
that the surface of the ocean is of the same 
temperature as the atmosphere above it; 
that as we go down into the depths the tem¬ 
perature decreases, and that as we leave the 
heated seas of the tropics, the water grows 
steadily colder till we reach the region of 
polar ice and snow. When we come to con¬ 
sider the formation of ice we find that there 
is one great point of difference between fresh 
and salt water. 

Pure water is heaviest at the temperature 
of thirty-nine degrees, and becomes lighter as 
it grows either warmer or colder than this. 
Now as freezing takes place at thirty-two 
degrees, and the heaviest water of course 
sinks, it thus happens that the water at the 















































































































































































































































THE OCEAN. 


45 


bottom of a lake can never freeze, since the 
moment it grows colder than thirty-nine 
degrees, it becomes lighter and rises. Thus 
it is that in fresh water ice is always formed 
on the surface. 

Salt water, on the contrary, becomes 
heavier the colder it grows, and the coldest 
strata is thus found at the bottom of the sea. 
There it may lie, its temperature below the 
freezing point, in a half fluid state, till some 
agitation of the water occurs, when it changes 
suddenly to ice. The expansion that then 
occurs, together with the fact that in freezing 
nearly all salt is expelled, makes the newly- 
formed ice much lighter than the water about 
it, and it rushes upward, sometimes carrying 
with it huge boulders, which it has torn from 
the bed of the sea. It is said that on the 
approach of winter in the Baltic the fishermen 


46 


THE OCEAN. 


often, without warning, find themselves 
surrounded by great blocks of ice that come 
up from the depths lashing the sea into foam, 
and threatening destruction to their frail craft. 
This formation of ice can take place only in 
comparatively shallow seas. The great ocean 
whose depths are measured by miles, is never 
frozen over. 

In the bays of the polar seas, where the 
winter’s cold sets in early, and is intense, by 
the first of September ice has formed along 
the shores, and has been slowly extending 
out into the open sea. When the long sun¬ 
less winter has fairly set in, the floating cakes 
which have been ground together and tossed 
into every fantastic form by opposing currents, 
and by wild storms, have solidified into one 
great rugged mass, extending without break 
for hundreds of miles. Here the surface is 


THE OCEAN. 


47 


smooth, and here it is wild and jagged with 
the upturned edges of cakes which, driven 
onward, perhaps, by some huge iceberg, have 



been welded fast before they could right 
themselves. When at last the tardy spring 
comes, these great fields are broken loose 











4 8 


THE OCEAN. 


from their shore moorings, and carried by 
the currents, go sailing southward in great 
masses, sometimes as much as a hundred and 
fifty miles in unbroken length, until, beaten to 
pieces by storms, they are melted under 
warmer skies. 

Sometimes a whaling ship is caught in 
this packed ice, and frozen up in the open 
Arctic sea before it can select a wintering 
spot under some sheltering cliff, and being 
held close prisoner all the winter, is carried 
mile after mile out of its course, with the 
floating mass, before it can liberate itself. In 
this way the ship of Captain McClintock, the 
explorer, was ice-bound for two hundred and 
thirty-two days, and when at last set free, had 
been carried eleven hundred and twenty miles 
out of its course. So, too, only a short time 
since, a party from the United States vessel 



0 





























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































THE OCEAN. 


51 


Polaris, being overtaken by a storm when on 
the ice, were carried away on a floe, and for 
nearly six months floated southward on it, 
till rescued by a passing vessel. 



Besides these massive floes, thousands of 
icebergs come sailing out through the straits 
of the polar seas, crushing and grinding their 








52 


THE OCEAN. 


way onward against all opposition, only to 
melt away in the warmer waters of the open 
ocean. We have already explained how they 
are great fragments discharged from the 
frozen rivers of the polar world ; but we are 
apt to think only of the Arctic regions, for¬ 
getting that the Antarctic world, too, is 
wrapped in snow and ice. Indeed, the cold 
there is greater, and the bergs that float to¬ 
ward the tropics are much more massive and 
reach latitudes far nearer the equator before 
they disappear. 

While those of northern seas assume 
fantastic forms, such as cathedrals or castles 
with towers and pinnacles ; those of the south 
are more often huge blocks of commonplace 
appearance. This, it is supposed, is owing to 
the severe cold which freezes into one solid 
mass the waters of the bays and inlets, so that 


THE OCEAN. 


53 


the glacier discharges really into the sea, and 
the berg is not broken and changed by the 
many bufferings it receives from projecting 
spurs before it finds itself fairly afloat in the 
open ocean. 


CHAPTER III. 


T HE sea has many moods. At times foi 
days together it will be motionless, 
presenting a glassy surface, without a ripple 
as far as the eye can reach ; at times it is 
lashed to fury by gales, and the scene, lately 
peaceful, is wild with furious waves. 

The formation of waves is due to the 
action of the wind, which raises the water 
before it, and drives it onward. Sometimes 
the wind changes, and coming from a new 
quarter, causes another series of waves to 
rise at right angles upon the first, and so on 
till the whole sea is one irregular tossing 
mass. In the tropics, where the trade winds 
blow steadily, and from the same direction, 























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































THE OCEAN. 


57 



the waves attain a uniform height, and come 
marching onward at equal distances apart, 


like the ranks of a great and silent army. 
To what height they do really attain in tem- 


5 » 


THE OCEAN. 


pests, it is almost impossible to tell. At such 
times they are apt to be thought much higher 
than they really are. Some celebrated mari¬ 
ners have asserted, that they have seen and 
measured them one hundred and eight feet 
in height, while others declare that the dis¬ 
tance from the trough of the sea to the crest 
of the waves almost never exceeds thirty 
feet. It is certain that they attain different 
heights in different seas, according to the 
depth and extent of each. Thus, it is known 
that they are much larger in the North At¬ 
lantic than in the Mediterranean, while in 
the Antarctic Ocean they are larger still. 
The saltness of the water, too, has an effect 
on the size of waves, the salter water being 
heavier and less easily moved. 

For a long time it was believed that, 
however violently the surface of the sea 

































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































THE OCEAN. 


6l 


might be agitated, this agitation was only a 
surface one, and was not felt at farthest, more 
than a hundred feet below. But this is now 
known to be incorrect. Waves have been seen 
to break over rocks which lie two hundred 
feet below the surface, and in heavy storms 
the sea has been discolored by mud raised 
from the bottom, though the water was seven 
hundred feet in depth. By very careful cal¬ 
culations, it has been found that the motion 
of the wave extends downward three hun¬ 
dred and fifty times its height, so that if the 
wave is three feet in height, its motion is 
perceptible at a depth of ten hundred and 
fifty feet, and while at such depths as this, 
the motion is the very faintest, yet for several 
hundred feet downward the sea is greatly 
disturbed. The strength of such masses of 
heaving water is enormous. As the waves 


62 


THE OCEAN. 


approach the shore, driven onward by the 
wind, they move more and more slowly as 
the depth decreases, and overtaking one an¬ 
other, are piled up to a great height before 
they break in foam upon the shore. 

Every one can remember how on some 
sultry summer day, when the sun has been at 
its hottest, and not a breath of wind has stirred, 
the air has seemed to grow thick, heavy 
and impure ; but that as soon as the breeze 
did come, all was changed, and the whole at¬ 
mosphere was fresh and bracing. In precisely 
the same way the waters of the ocean, if they 
remained stationary, would become stagnant 
and impure. Nature takes the same way to 
prevent this in the sea that she does on the 
land. Just as our whole atmosphere is con¬ 
tinually in motion, and as currents of air and 
wind are continually passing over us, so 


THE OCEAN. 


63 


the whole mass of water in the ocean is con¬ 
stantly moving, and no sea, however small, 
is free from currents. The mariner who 
neglects to allow for them, is always sure to 
find himself far out of his reckoning. 

One of these currents is so vast, that it is 
more proper to consider it a river. The 
North American Indians called the Mis¬ 
sissippi the father of waters; but the Missis¬ 
sippi is a pigmy compared to the Gulf Stream. 
All the rivers of the world together cannot 
equal it. It contains over a thousand times 
more water than the Mississippi, and is far 
longer. It runs through the ocean as clearly 
distinct from the water about it as any river 
in the world is from its banks. Starting in 
the Caribbean sea, it first makes the circuit 
of the Gulf of Mexico, and escaping into the 
Atlantic between the southern extremity of 


64 


THE OCEAN. 


Florida and Cuba, it passes on northward, in 
width about thirty-seven miles, in depth 
fourteen hundred feet, at a distance of about 
a hundred miles from the coast. When it is 
off Cape Hatteras. it has widened to about 
seventy-eight miles, and has diminished in 
depth to about eight hundred feet. Its speed, 
too, is less, and it has begun to swerve a little 
to the east. This motion eastward increases 
as we go on, and when off New York it swerves 
still more, and making its way across the 
ocean, widening and becoming more shallow 
as it goes, it reaches the coasts of France and 
England, and has even become so broad as 
to wash the southern shores of Iceland, and 
still pressing on, disappears in the polar 
regions. 

When this great river is making the cir¬ 
cuit of the Gulf of Mexico, its waters, under 


THE OCEAN. 


65 


the blazing tropic sun, have been heated till 
they reach the temperature of eighty-six de¬ 
grees. When off Hatteras, a thousand miles 
on its way, it is still thirty degrees warmer 
than the ocean through which it runs ; and 
when it has reached Europe, though now only 
a mere sheet of warm water on the surface of 
the deep, it still retains so much heat that it is 
owing to its effect on the air above it that 
England and Ireland have so mild a climate, 
while on the other side of the ocean, in the 
same latitude, the lands are locked in almost 
perpetual ice and snow. 

The Gulf Stream does not flow on the 
bottom of the ocean. As we have said, it is 
deepest when it leaves the Gulf of Mexico, 
and continually grows more shallow, till it is 
merely a thin sheet of water when it enters 
the polar regions. Were it to come in contact 


66 


THE OCEAN. 


with the bottom of the sea, it would soon lose 
its heat; but since water is a bad conductor 
of heat, it is owing to the fact, that it has a 
bed of water and not earth, that after a route 
of thousands of miles, it still retains so much 
warmth. 

The path of this great river is not difficult 
to trace. Especially in the early part of its 
course its outlines are so distinct that a ship 
can tell the moment it enters it, and one end 
of a vessel can be seen to be in the stream, 
while the other is out. If it be night, the 
sailor has but to lower a thermometer into 
the water to tell his position. 

Since such great amounts of water are 
constantly leaving the equator, to be spread 
over the northern seas, it is evident that there 
must be a current from the polar seas south¬ 
ward, to replace what is thus sent away. 


THE OCEAN. 


67 


This is a current that we have already noticed, 
the one that brings the icebergs down 
through Baffin’s bay to their destruction on 
the banks of Newfoundland. Here these two 
currents meet, the Gulf Stream, bound to the 
northeast, and the polar stream to the south. 
Obeying the law that we have explained, that 
the colder salt water is, the heavier it be¬ 
comes, and that the heavier water sinks, this 
cold northern current leaves the surface, and 
plunging into the depths makes its way under 
the Gulf Stream, running in an exactly 
opposite direction, till it reaches the Equator. 
We thus have the strange fact of two great 
rivers, running in opposite directions, one on 
top of the other, one of hot water, and the 
other of cold. The polar stream is not 
warmed by the river that runs above it, for as 
far south as Florida, the thermometer that is 


68 


THE OCEAN. 


sunk to its level finds a temperature very 
little warmer than when it left the surface on 
the banks of Newfoundland. 

These warm waters are the delight of 
thousands of strange forms of life, which 
swimming in its pleasant waves, are often 
carried far into the polar regions. 

To the sailor, the Gulf Stream is of the 
greatest advantage. Before we knew, as we 
now do, so much of its position, speed, and 
temperature, and this was not so long ago, 
vessels from England took nearly double the 
time now needed to make a passage to the 
new world. The first plan made of the Gulf 
Stream, is one by Benjamin Franklin in 1770. 
This was engraved from a sketch made for 
him by the captain of a fast sailing Nantucket 
vessel, who was first led to notice the cur¬ 
rent by the fact that whales were found on 


■n 







































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































/ 













% 
























4 - 

















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THE OCEAN. 


71 


each side of it, but never in it. Avoiding 
the stream on his return to America, he 
always reached port weeks before his rivals, 
who had sailed against it, and had been set 
back seventy miles or more each day. 

A few years later, Dr. Franklin made the 
discovery that its waters were always many 
degrees warmer than the surrounding seas, 
but kept his discovery for years a secret. It 
was then during the Revolution, and he 
feared that should it be known that a sailor 
could tell his position merely by holding a 
thermometer in the water, the voyages to the 
colonies would be so shortened, that troops 
would be sent over in great quantities to 
subdue the patriot forces. When his discov¬ 
ery was finally made public, it wrought a 
great revolution ip navigation. The ports of 
the northern states, gradually took away the 


72 


THE OCEAN. 


trade that had gone to the southern, and 
Charleston, which was formerly the great 
shipping centre, was soon far surpassed by 
New York and Philadelphia. 

But the Gulf Stream is not a bringer of 
good things only. The sailors call it a 
“ weather-breeder.” The most violent storms 
that are known, rage upon and about it. 
Hurricanes sometimes start at its very source, 
and follow its whole course, leaving shipwreck 
and disaster everywhere behind them. The 
violence of such storms is frightful. In 1853, 
the San Francisco, with a regiment of troops, 
was overtaken by a hurricane when in it, 
and one single wave carried away nearly two 
hundred men. One storm is recorded so 
violent, that the water was driven back into 
the Gulf of Mexico, till it stood thirty feet 
above its regular level, and a ship that had 


THE OCEAN. 


73 


anchored, and tried to ride out the gale, found 
herself when the waters abated, ashore with 
her anchors fast to a tree-top. 

The Gulf Stream is not the only great 
current of the sea. The Indian Ocean is 
the fountain-head of several, each of which 
is perhaps as large. One is very similar in 
character to it. Starting out with its waters 
heated several degrees hotter than those of 
its American sister, and teeming with the 
same rich forms of tropic life, it rounds the 
southern part of Asia, and making its way 
up through the China sea, turns to the east¬ 
ward, and crossing the Pacific, brings to the 
western shores of America the same mild 
climate that the British Isles enjoy. 

Our knowledge of the Pacific is by no 
means so thorough as of the Atlantic, yet it 
is known that besides this one, there are 



74 


THE OCEAN. 


many conflicting currents, and these on a 
great scale. If we stop a moment we shall 
see one cause, which alone is sufficient to 
keep the whole sea in turmoil. In the trop¬ 
ical regions, where the heat is intense, and 
where the trade winds blow constantly, the 
evaporation amounts to an inch of water a 
day over the whole surface exposed. Thus, 
in the Pacific alone, there is taken up in this 
way, each day, enough water to cover a space 
more than a hundred miles square, and one 
mile deep. All thus taken away in the form 
of vapor, must return in rain to the sea 
again ; the greater part of it hundreds of 
miles distant from where it was taken up, 
and in its attempt to rush onward and fill up 
the vacuum, would create currents that would 
keep the sea in constant agitation. 

A very striking example of this great 














































































































































































































































































































































■ 












THE OCEAN. 


77 


evaporation is seen in the Red sea, which 
communicates with the Indian Ocean, only by 
comparatively narrow straits. It is at its 
northern extremity, at Suez, two feet lower 
than at its southern end. The scorching 
winds, parched from blowing over the Arabian 
deserts, suck up the water to such an extent 
that, though fresh supplies are constantly 
pouring into it from the outer ocean, so much 
is evaporated, before making the passage of 
the sea, that its northern end stands always 
two feet lower than the southern. 


CHAPTER IV. 


ESIDES the great system of currents 
that constantly keeps the whole mass of 
the sea in motion, sending the hot waters of 
the tropics to temper the cold df .northern 
lands, and bringing the icebergs of the north, 
to melt away in the warm southern waves, 
there is another great movement of the deep, 
of which we have as yet said nothing. This 
is the tides. 

Every twelve hours, in every ocean, and 
on every sea-shore, the water rises steadily 
several feet above its ordinary level, and then 
slowly sinks away only to rise again at the 
interval of another twelve hours. The long 
sandy beach, which perhaps stretched a half 


THE OCEAN. 


79 


mile out to sea, before the rising of the tide, 
is now covered with tossing waves, and boats 
are sailing boldly over what a short time 



H1G1I-T1DE ON THE COAST. 


before may have been a roadway, with pass¬ 
ing vehicles. 

The earth, as we all know, revolves every 
twenty-four hours on its axis, and conse¬ 
quently every part of the earth’s surface 
passes directly under the moon in each revo- 











So 


THE OCEAN. 


lution. Now the moon is sufficiently near 
the earth to exercise a strong attraction on it. 
The waters of the sea, which are in a fluid 
condition, and therefore yield more readily to 



LOW-TIDE ON THE COAST. 


such a power than the solid earth, are swelled 
up in a great mound, directly under the 
moon, and in this way the tidal wave is 
formed. As the earth keeps on turning 
around, these heaped up waters must make 




THE OCEAN, 


8l 


the entire circuit of the globe every twenty- 
four hours and bring high-tide to every sea. 


But we have said before that the high tide 



HIGH-TIDF.—THE RIVER. 


comes every twelve hours, so that we have 
only explained one half. When the moon 
attracts the waters, and piles them up be- 








82 


THE OCEAN. 


neath her, it also attracts the earth, and just 
as the waters nearest the moon are drawn 
away from the earth, so the earth, too, is at¬ 
tracted and drawn away from the waters on 
the other side of the globe, which are thus 
higher in consequence. So that whenever 
it is high-tide at any point, we know that 
if a line could be drawn directly through the 
centre of the earth, the place on the op¬ 
posite side of the globe where it emerged 
would also have high-tide. 

In this way the tides are formed: and in 
the southern hemisphere where, below the 
continents of South America and Africa, one 
unbroken sea surrounds the whole globe, they 
can be seen moving onward through the deep 
as regular in their motion as the earth is in 
her revolution. When they enter the north¬ 
ern oceans, however, the shores of the conti- 


83 


THE OCEAN. 

nents check and retard their speed, and cause 
variations in their onward course, so that 
the moon may have passed over a certain 



spot an hour, or even twelve hours, before the 
retarded wave reaches it. An examination 
of the map will show in the case of the North 






8 4 


THE OCEAN. 


sea, for instance, through what tortuous 
paths the tidal wave must pass before it 
can bring high water to its ports. 

The height of the tidal wave which, in the 
midst of the open ocean, is always about the 
same, varies as the wave approaches the shore. 
The same causes that affect storm waves 
when they beat upon the coast, affect the 
tidal waves. Where its waters are pent up 
by contracting coasts, and by a rapidly shoal¬ 
ing bottom, the wave rears itself up and 
rushes onward in great height and in furious 
wrath. On other coasts, however, where a 
long level beach receives the incoming waters, 
their approach is with hardly a ripple. 

No sea is without its tide:—even the 
great lakes of North America have one. In 
lake Michigan it is calculated to be three 
inches. There are some ports, however, 


THE OCEAN. 


35 


where the sea never changes its level; but 
this is caused by two tidal waves arriving 
from different directions. Let us take for 
example the North sea. Here one wave 
comes from the south entering through the 
British channel and makes its way northward. 
Another wave enters around the north of 
Scotland, and makes its way southward. If 
we then suppose a town situated where the 
tide from the south would come at twelve 
o’clock, and the tide from the north at six, 
these two waves would so offset one another 
that the water would always stand at the 
same level. 

Often the incoming of the tide is a sight of 
great grandeur. At the head of the Persian 
Gulf it reaches a height of thirty-six feet, and 
in the straits of Magellan it has been known 
to rise sixty-six feet. In the bay of St. 


86 


THE OCEAN. 


Michael, on the western coast of France, it 
presents a grand spectacle. “ In the centre 
of the bay rises a black granite rock, which 
by its abrupt precipices contrasts with the 
dreary extent of the shore. At low water 
the immense sandy plain, above one hundred 
and fifty miles in extent, resembles a bed of 
ashes. But when the tide, swifter than a 
horse at full gallop, rises foaming over the 
scarcely perceptible slope, a few hours are 
sufficient to transform the whole bay into a 
sheet of grayish water, penetrating far up the 
mouths of rivers. At the ebb, the waters 
retire with the same speed, to nearly six and 
a quarter miles from the shore, and lay bare 
the great desert strand which is intersected 
by the subterranean deltas of tributary rivu¬ 
lets, forming treacherous abysses of soft 
mud.” 


THE OCEAN. 


87 


It is in the bay of Fundy, however, that 
the grandest effect of the tides is seen. A 
glance at the map, will show that the shores 
of the coast are here peculiarly fitted to pro¬ 
duce a high tidal wave, as for long distances 
they narrow steadily, like the mouth of a 
funnel. The wave here reaches the height of 
seventy feet, and has been known at times to 
be even one hundred and twenty feet in height. 
“ Twice a day, immense neutral shores, which 
are neither land nor sea, change into deep 
gulfs, and stranded ships rise and float with 
sails spread, while towns lost in the interior 
of the land, find themselves seated on penin¬ 
sulas invested by the sea. At St. John a cas¬ 
cade is seen to glisten at the bottom of the port 
at low water ; but when the tide reaches the 
foot of the cliff, the height of the fall gradually 
diminishes, and it is at last entirely drowned 


88 


THE OCEAN. 


in the salt waters, which, spreading far over the 
upper terrace, permit vessels to penetrate into 
the natural basin formed above the cascade.” 

The same causes which bring about the 
high tides in the bay of Fundy, when operat¬ 
ing at the mouths of rivers, often cause a 
great wave called the bore or eagre to roll up 
stream against the current. The tidal waters, 
as they roll in from the ocean retarded by 
narrowing shores, and by a shallowing bed, 
pile themselves up and come onward looking 
like a foaming cataract, sometimes thirty feet 
in height. The vessels, lying in the stream 
must then use every precaution, for the slight¬ 
est error will cause their destruction. 

The Hoogly river, the entrance to the port 
of Calcutta, is often thus visited, as are many 
other rivers, the Weser, the Amazon, and 
the Ganges. In China too, on the Chikiang 



































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































THE OCEAN. OI 

river, the bore assumes great proportions. 
A traveller, who witnessed it from a posi¬ 
tion which allowed him to overlook the city 
of Hang Chow as the bore approached, thus 
describes it: 

“ On a sudden all traffic on the thronged 
mart was suspended ; porters cleared the front 
street of every description of merchandise, 
boatmen ceased loading and unloading their 
vessels, and put out into the middle of the 
stream ; so that a few moments sufficed to 
give a deserted appearance to the busiest 
part of one of the busiest cities of Asia. The 
centre of the stream was crowded with craft, 
from small boats to huge barges. 

“ Loud shouting from the fleet announced 
the appearance of the flood, which seemed 
like a glittering white cable stretched athwart 
the river at its mouth as far down as the eye 


92 


THE OCEAN. 


could reach. Its noise, compared by the 
Chinese poets to that of thunder, speedily 
drowned that of the boatmen ; and as it 
advanced with prodigious velocity, it assumed 
the appearance of an alabaster wall, or rather 
of a cataract four or five miles across, and 
about thirty feet high, moving bodily onward. 
It soon reached the immense assemblage of 
vessels waiting its approach. 

“ Knowing that the bore of the Hoogly 
which scarce deserved mention in connection 
with the one before me, invariably overturned 
boats that were not skilfully managed, I 
could not but feel apprehension for the lives 
of the floating multitude. As the foaming 
wall of water dashed impetuously forward, 
threatening to submerge everything afloat, 
they were all silenced and intently occupied 
in keeping their prows toward the wave ; and 


THE OCEAN. 


93 


thus they all vaulted, as it were, to the sum¬ 
mit in perfect safety. 

“ The spectacle was of the greatest inter¬ 
est when the eagre had passed about half 
way among the craft. The boats in front 
were quietly reposing on the unruffled surface 
of the stream, others were scaling with the 
agility of salmon the formidable cascade, 
while those behind were pitching and heaving 
in tumultuous confusion on the troubled 
waters. 

“ This grand and exciting scene was but 
of a few moments’ duration ; it passed up the 
river in an instant, but with greatly dimin¬ 
ishing force, size and velocity, until at about 
eighty miles distance it ceases to be percep¬ 
tible.” 


CHAPTER V. 


'^HE action of -the ocean upon the coasts 
of continents and islands is very inter¬ 
esting. Sometimes we find shores which it is 
carrying away bodily year by year; in other 
parts of the world rocky cliffs and mountains 
seem to bid it defiance. 

The coast of Norway is especially wild. 
Here the sea makes its way in numerous 
fiords into the land, dividing it up into rocky 
peninsulas and islands. These fiords are so 
many in number, and extend so far into the 
land, that the coast line which if not thus cut 
into, would measure only a little over eleven 
hundred miles, is in reality extended to over 
eight thousand. 



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THE OCEAN. 


97 


The scenery is magnificent beyond de¬ 
scription. The great mountains, reaching 
thousands of feet above the sea, seem to 
have been torn asunder, leaving narrow and 
gloomy gorges through which the waters flow. 
Sometimes these gorges are surrounded by 
perpendicular cliffs, so lofty that the waves 
never see the sun’s rays, and the boatmen 
sail in a sort of shaded gloom. Sometimes a 
stream leaps from a cliff so high, that its out¬ 
ward curve is sufficient to allow a ship to 
sail between its descending waters and the 
rock from which it comes. Every passing 
cloud brings a change over the wild scene. 

These fiords are very deep. One called 
the Leysefiord penetrates twenty-six miles 
into the continent. Its width is hardly two 
thousand feet ; its walls are nearly four thou¬ 
sand feet in height, and throughout all this 


THE OCEAN. 


98 

wild gorge the waters are over fifteen hun¬ 
dred feet in depth. 

How came the coast of this continent to 
be rent and chiselled into the shape in which 
we find it? The explanation is a very 
simple one. If we recall what has been 
already said of the Arctic glacier:—how it 
winds through the valleys as it makes its way 
to the sea, breaking off blocks of some oppos¬ 
ing spur, and cutting its way through the 
valleys ; we shall see that a glacier has been 
here in past ages, and that it is to its agency 
that this jagged coast is owing. At some time 
in the world’s history the climate of Norway 
must have been that of the polar regions, and 
the hills whose tops are still snow-clad, must 
have been clothed to their base in one great 
mass of ice. Then the change of tempera¬ 
ture came, and the ice was melted, laying 


09 


THE OCEAN. 


bare the proofs of its great power. If this 



THE HEAD OF A FIORD. 


theory is correct, we should find just at the 





















TOO 


THE OCEAN. 


outer edge of the coast, where the iceberg 
broke off into the sea, deposits of rock 
which were brought down from the moun¬ 
tains, and were here dropped by the glacier. 
Just such deposits are found, and are well 
known to the fishermen, who call them sea- 
gates, and come in pursuit of the fish which 
abound over them. 

The ocean continually labors to destroy 
such rugged coasts as these, and if the world 
exists long enough there is no doubt that the 
fiords of Norway will entirely disappear. 
The sea will dash against the projecting 
promontories, and breaking them into finer 
pieces by the constant grinding of the waves, 
will form sand-banks by which the mouth of 
each fiord will be closed. Then the washings 
from the hills will gradually fill up the chan¬ 
nels, and the inland sea will become dry land. 


THE OCEAN. 


IOI 



This action of the ocean in wearing - off 


THE ISLANDS OFF THE NORWAY COAST. 

promontories, and causing the shores to as- 












102 


THE OCEAN. 


sume the form of curves, is found everywhere. 
The sea repeats this action in every clime. 
Where, as in Norway, a great glacier has held 
possession, and it has been working for a 
comparatively short time, it has hardly as yet 
produced any effect. In more southern seas, 
where it has for ages been moulding the 
shores, they may be seen as in the Mediterra¬ 
nean, assuming the form of curve after curve 
along their whole extent. 

The destructive power of the sea upon 
certain coasts is very great. .Upon the cliffs 
of the English channel it hammers continually, 
carrying away several feet each year, and 
gradually widening the barrier between 
France and the British Isles. It is not the 
water alone, which is so terrible a force in 
wearing away the cliffs. Every piece of rock 
which is broken off, is used by the waves as a 


THE OCEAN. 


IG 3 

battering ram, and hurled back again, beating- 
down new fragments. 

On low coasts the action of the waves is 
most disastrous. When the Romans held 
England, Kent extended out three miles into 
what is now the sea. The Goodwin Sands, 
which are the cause of so many wrecks 
each year, were tilled land in the time of 
William the Conqueror, and were then the 
property of the great Saxon Earl Godwine. 
Neglected by the abbey into whose posses¬ 
sion they came, they soon fell a prey to the 
waves. 

In the North sea is the small island 
Heligoland. It is not a mile and a half long, 
and not half a mile wide, and little better than 
a bare rock. Yet an old chronicler, in the 
year 1072, describes it as “ very fertile, rich in 
corals, in animals, and birds/’ and declares 


io4 


THE OCEAN. 


that it was five hundred square miles in 
extent. Of all this the waves have left but 
the barren rock that now exists. 

But nowhere are the ravages of the sea 
so strongly marked as in the Low Countries. 
In the time of the Roman invasion of Gaul, 
what is now the great Zuyder Zee was a vast 
forest. A single lake alone occupied a small 
part of its surface. In the centuries that 
have passed since then, the sea has never 
been idle. The strife has been carried on 
day and night, but at times the ocean has made 
great inroads that have submerged mile upon 
mile of country, turning fertile fields into 
marshes and sand-banks, and sweeping away 
to death thousands of people. These in¬ 
undations can be numbered by hundreds, and 
several are on record where over one hun¬ 
dred thousand people have been drowned. 


THE OCEAN. 


!°5 

In the year 1421 seventy-two villages were 
destroyed at one time, and only banks of 
mud and reeds left to mark their site. 

Notwithstanding its victory it would seem 
as if the sea had won but half a battle, for it 
has done little more in many places than 
barely cover the ground. In the Zuyder Zee 
lie great sand-banks, over which the water is 
only about a foot in depth, and the mariner 
who attempts to sail its dangerous waters 
must be ever on the alert, for often the 
deviation of a few feet will bring shipwreck 
to his craft. 

While the ocean washes away and de¬ 
stroys some coasts, it adds to others largely, 
depositing upon the beach each year vast 
quantities of alluvium. On such shores are 
often seen great hills of shifting sand called 
dunes. The constant friction of the waves 


io6 


THE OCEAN. 


grinds all the rocks with which it comes in 
contact into the finest particles. The reced¬ 
ing tide leaves these spread in the thinnest 
layers upon the beach. The strong wind 
from the sea blows over them, sweeping them 
landward in a little cloud before it. Presently 
the breeze thus loaded meets an obstacle; 
a stake, perhaps, or a rock, and it is for a 
moment checked. The sand is now dropped, 
and in a short time a large mound is formed 
which completely buries its original cause. 
Every fresh wind adds to the new hillock, 
until it soon becomes a veritable hill. On 
the coast of Gascony, where in times past 
dunes have, by reason of the fineness of the 
sand and the position of the coast, grown to 
great size, many are more than two hundred 
and twenty-five feet in height. On the Afri¬ 
can coast near Cape Verde, it is said that they 


THE OCEAN. 


107 


even reach six hundred feet in height, and 
become small mountain ranges. 

When the dune is thus formed, it is not 
stationary, but moves slowly and irresistibly 
inland. Every fresh breeze that blows up its 
surface, carries with it some of its sands, and 
when it reaches the summit, drops them on the 
landward side, which is thus increased at the 
expense of the seaward. Each grain is made 
to move continually. Taken up from the 
beach, it is carried up the mound, and over its 
summit, only to be buried by those that follow, 
but after a time when the wind has again un¬ 
covered it, it comes once more to help the 
onward march. When the dune is now some 
distance inland, a fresh one is formed behind it, 
and still another, till the whole coast is covered 
by range after range of shifting hills. Its 
march is slow, but as we have said, irresistible. 


io8 


THE OCEAN. 


Woe to the unfortunate village that lies in its 
path. It is buried remorselessly. The in¬ 
habitants may dig their enemy down, and 
level its sands with the soil about them, but a 
fresh one comes marching on, and there is no 
safety but in flight. In 1480 the church of 
L£ge was removed inland to escape destruc¬ 
tion ; before two hundred years had gone 
the sand had advanced four miles toward it. 
Should the dune, in its onward course, encoun¬ 
ter a lake, its waters are driven from their 
bed, which is filled with sand, and is scattered 
over the country, flooding the fertile fields 
and perhaps turning them into marshes and 
quagmires. 

Against such an enemy it would at first 
seem as if man were powerless, but nature has 
pointed out certain ways of fixing the dunes 
so as to make them stationary. Certain plants 


THE OCEAN. 


IO9 

exist, whose roots, twenty or thirty feet in 
length, find their way throughout the whole 
hill, binding it into one solid mass. Pines, too, 
as well as other trees, take root and flourish in 
the sandy soil. Taking note of these facts, a 
systematic attempt has been made at dif¬ 
ferent times to plant the entire coast of Gas¬ 
cony, and this has been actually carried out. 
Already forests are beginning to appear 
where before was nothing but arid sands ; and 
before another century has passed, these 
waste lands will be paying a large revenue. 

Though we have come to the end of our 
book we have not by any means come to the 
end of our subject. Nothing has been said 
of the many strange forms of life that people 
the waters of the sea. From the infusoria, 
whose existence can only be told by the mi- 


I 10 


THE OCEAN. 


croscope, to the whale which though swim¬ 
ming like a fish, is no fish at all, not a single 
form of life is without interest. Nature’s cre¬ 
ations are far more strange than those of 
fancy. What imagination would have thought 
of the frog angler, a fish who carries before 
him a baited line with which he catches 
smaller fish, in almost the same way as a man 
with rod and line. Or who would have made 
the sticklebat which builds in the water a nest 
like a bird’s in which the female may lay her 
eggs. This is however a subject on which 
volumes might be written, and here it can 
only be pointed out to those who care to 
interest themselves in it, for this little book 
must come to an end. 


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